


Cuddling Like Rational Adults

by trash4ficsaboutlurv



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Domestic Avengers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 15:04:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5789998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trash4ficsaboutlurv/pseuds/trash4ficsaboutlurv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve still isn't that great with the cold and there's a blizzard on the way (Or the one in which Sam, Nat, and Clint Are the Best Friends Steve Would Never Even Have Thought To Ask For)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cuddling Like Rational Adults

Steve shucks the curtain fabric through his fingers and peers out the window, shoulders taut, brow drawn. Sam sits on the sofa. He’s wearing his reading glasses and has a book on the American Civil War open in his lap. He’s watching Steve, but pretending he’s not. The light outside is pearly grey, gives everything in the living room a dull sheen. The black and white photos on the wall look almost blue. Sam wonders if turning on a light will soothe Steve, if he’ll even notice.

The first blizzard of the year is on track to hit D.C. this afternoon. The sky is one large cloud, like a blanket around the world. No, like a pillow coming to smother them. That’s what Steve is thinking. He’s remembering the snowy mountain, the icy ocean, the _Winter_ Soldier. Nothing good has ever come from the snow. Sam can see these worries thread their way through Steve’s posture, color his eyes haunted. Sam isn’t much for snow either. It’s cold and wet and inconvenient and the beauty is so transient, it’s hardly worth the bother. When he lived in New York, the snow turned brown with footprints and car exhaust before it even had a chance to settle. And in D.C., no one—and Sam means, _no one—_ can drive. There are the suburban complaints of shoveling the walkways and praying the roof doesn’t cave in, and then there are the unbearably tragic worries—where is the homeless guy Sam passes on the way to work every day? And what about Sandy, one of his vets who had her lights cut off last week? Will she have heat or will she and her kids shiver through the night?

Sam thinks of that Dickensian tale of the little matchstick girl, selling matches on a cold, wintry night. Lighting the matches for a small measure of warmth until she comes to rest on a doorstep and dies of hypothermia. In the version Sam read as a kid, there’s a whole long section about the little girl’s spirit rising up and going to heaven where she’s reunited with her poor, dead mama and she’s never cold again. That story has never sat well with Sam. Why didn’t any of those furred-up yuppies in the illustrations notice a barefooted child in a small scrap of a dress walking through drifts of snow? Sam had grieved for that poor, looked-over girl. He grieves for her still.

“Steve,” he says. He removes his glasses, folds them, and sets them on the end table with the book. “Steve, come away from the window. Come keep me warm.”

Steve lets the curtain fall, turns back to Sam with a sad grin. “That’s all I’m good for,” he jokes. He looks like a still from a movie silhouetted by the milky-white light from outside, his profile so achingly beautiful it sometimes steals Sam’s breath away.

He holds out his arms to Steve and Steve comes to him, rearranges them so he’s sitting in the V of Sam’s legs. He tilts his head back and Sam intertwines their fingers on Steve’s hard stomach, hard even when he’s not flexing. His body is warm and solid and comfortably heavy pinning Sam to the sofa.

“We’ve got a generator,” Sam says into the quiet. “Flashlights, candles, dozens of blankets. My neighbor has a snow blower we can use, my roof is slanted so the snow won’t build up. I have a full pantry of non-perishables. Our phones are charged and I have two portable chargers if the lights go out.” He kisses Steve’s temple, waits for some of the anxiety to ease out of his shoulders.

“Thanks,” Steve says. He squeezes Sam’s fingers.

“Do you need me to go through the list again?” he asks, knowing Steve won’t ask, but that that’s exactly what he wants.

Steve nods and Sam rewards him with another kiss. “We have a generator, flashlights…”

 ***

Sam turns on ESPN. There’s a basketball game, Bulls v. Celtics. Basketball isn’t really his thing. A bunch of tall, lanky guys running up and down the court with ease. He likes a little more struggle, likes the contained and regulated violence of football. His team was knocked out of the playoffs last week though and he’s still too fragile to watch any of the football talk shows, so basketball it is. One of Sam’s vets, Richie, recites basketball scores to fall asleep. Scores from games last week or from four years ago when his buddy got torn apart by an IED in Iraq on one of those unofficial missions that never happened. “Tell Leo it never happened,” Richie says, his voice as dark and bitter as burned coffee.

Steve has dozed off in Sam’s arms. Sam likes to think he has a calming effect, but more likely, Steve is gathering his energy so he can be on high-alert when the snow does fall, each flake an agent of sinister machinations in the heavens. _You’re so dramatic,_ Peggy would say or Steve would say Peggy would say. Sam never met her, Steve’s first love, but he thinks he would have liked her. She apparently called Steve out on his shit—a lot. Sam wonders how she would handle Steve’s fears. Did she ever know him to be afraid? It was surely a rare sight. Steve’s too—god, what even is the word for what Steve is? It’s not “stupid” and it’s not “brave,” but some word in between. He’s too _that_ to be afraid. And then there’s the little problem of self-loathing brought on by guilt that makes him more reckless than Sam has the patience or emotional strength to deal with. They’ve had this talk a few times. “If you won’t stop endangering yourself for you, do it for me?” Sam had finally said and that had basically been his declaration of love. That he loved Steve and that the thought of him dying—especially doing something idiotic to save Bucky when Bucky still hadn’t decided he wanted to be saved—the thought of it was a noose around his throat, a shiv pressed to his gut. And Steve had looked at him and understood what he was saying with the not-words as much as the words-words, and he said “Okay.”

Sam doesn’t know which hurts him more, though. The Steve who’s brash and invincible, or the Steve who stands at windows and dreads the snow. He squeezes Steve protectively, drops a kiss on the exposed skin of his neck. Steve sighs in his sleep. A Bulls player makes a three-pointer and the crowd goes nuts. The score is 65-64 and it’s not even half-time. That’s another reason Sam can’t get into basketball. The points don’t matter until the last two minutes of the game, at least if both teams are decent. Sam prefers a game where every score could be a nail in the coffin, every mistake could turn the game on its head and lead the underdogs to victory. That’s closer to life, or at least, closer to Sam’s life. Every little thing counts. If Riley had carried one pound fewer, he might have been able to swerve faster and he wouldn’t have died. Or if Sam had gone to breakfast with one of his coworkers instead of running the Mall that day, he would never have met Steve. If his team’s running back hadn’t fumbled on the goal line last week, they’d be in the Super Bowl. So many ifs in a life. He’s sure Steve is more tortured by the ifs than he is, because, after all, that’s part of the reason he hates the snow.

 ***

The snow doesn’t start until night has fallen. Natasha and Clint have arrived, uninvited but appreciated. When they open the door—Nat never knocks—the cold rushes into the living room like a snarling animal. Steve bolts up, accidentally elbows Sam in the rib. Sam grunts and pulls his leg up over Steve’s, so he’s holding him down. “Steve,” he says, “It’s Nat and Clint. They closed the door.” Sam speaks quietly; Nat and Clint are in the foyer hanging up their coats. Steve exhales, pats Sam’s shin to say he’s okay.

“These two have the right idea,” Clint says, strolling into the living room. He’s in shorts and a S.H.I.E.L.D. hoodie. _White boys and their shorts_ , Sam thinks but doesn’t say. Natasha is more suitably attired in black pants, an oversize black sweater and fuzzy white socks. “I told Nat you guys would be cuddling like rational adults in a snow storm, but she was all,” and here he adopts a painfully inaccurate mimicry of Natasha’s voice, “‘If I get snowed in with no one for conversation but you, I’ll kill myself. And you.’”

Steve fidgets at the phrase “snowed in” and Sam strokes the inside of his palms. “No one’s getting snowed in,” he says. “Those weather guys say a foot and we’ll get an inch. And the city will still shut down because it’s run by morons.”

Clint nods his agreement. “Yeah, my favorite Snowpocalypse was two years ago. Remember? I think it was Blizzard Julian. Or Jorge? It was a J and they shut down Manhattan. Literally shut the whole city off like a light switch. And little Prince Julian Jorge Rodriguez said, ‘Well, fuck you too’ and spun out into the middle of the ocean to die. Meteorologists are the world’s greatest con men, I tell you. Con men.”

Nat smiles. “As you can see, Clint’s pretty passionate about accurate forecasts.”

“You would be, too, if you canceled a date with Helga Doddenroff of Doddenroff Jeweler fame because of a snow storm that never came.”

Nat pats Clint’s shoulder and says, “He’s convinced Helga’s the one that got away.” She rolls her eyes to say what she thinks of that and Sam smiles.

Steve isn’t so tense in his arms anymore. They decide to play board games to pass the time. Natasha puts on some classical music because she’s fancy that way, but after a while, Clint objects, says that Bach or Beethoven or whoever the hell’s playing is making him feel stupid and unlearned. When they ask what playlists Sam has, Steve nudges his shoulder and says, “Put on some Marvin Gaye for these heathens.”

Natasha rolls her eyes and Sam starts a Motown playlist and pretty soon the four of them are singing with The Temptations:

_I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day!_

_When it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May!_

_And I guess you’d say,_

_What can make me feel this way?_

_My girl_

_My girl_

_My girl_

_Talking ‘bout my girl._

_My girl!_

And then Clint supplies the _ooooOOOOoooooOOOOhh!!_ that almost cracks Sam’s ribs from laughter. It’s the pitchiest, most-off-key thing he’s ever heard and it’s beautiful. Natasha makes a dry comment about hearing aids and singing, which only encourages Clint’s aggressively terrible performance. He uses the remote controller as a microphone and sings his off-key heart out. The others abandon Monopoly, too, and they dance to Mary Wells “My Guy” and The Supremes’ “Stop! In the Name of Love.” Natasha is undoubtedly the best dancer, but Sam and Clint are winning by sheer ridiculousness. Sam dips Clint low and then swings him up and now Clint has his legs around Sam’s waist and they’re twirling and then shaking and shimmying their shoulders. It takes a bit of cajoling to get Steve loose enough, but even he can’t resist “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” and he throws back his head on the “when he died” and sings in a falsetto that would put Justin Timberlake to shame. Natasha wants “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” and Sam submits even though it’s not Motown, because it’s honestly the perfect song. Steve has never heard it before and Natasha is bashing Sam for neglecting Steve’s musical education and then O-o-oh! WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO—GOT TO DO WITH IT? WHAT’S LOVE BUT A SECONDHAND EMOTION?

And once Steve has the chorus, he belts along with Nat and Sam WHO NEEDS A HEART WHEN A HEART CAN BE BROKEN? Clint is already looking for the next song to play and their cheeks hurt from laughing.

 ***

Now they're in bed. Steve insists on keeping the curtains open.

“To stare down the devil?” Sam asks, mostly teasing.

Steve smiles, shakes his head. He’s quiet so Sam thinks he won’t answer, but then he says, “When I was in the war, sometimes I’d just stare out at the front. I’d be safe, you know, right by my tent, but just a couple hundred yards away they could kill you—they would kill you.” Sam waits, watches Steve remember. “It was the strangest feeling. Dread and anticipation mixed together. Probably how you felt the first time you flew?”

Sam nods. That was exactly the feeling.

They climb into bed, Steve curled around Sam. They watch the snow come down. It’s falling thick and fast and Sam thinks they’ll probably get that foot of snow. He can hear Nat and Clint in the living room. (“Our soldier hours are different from your spy hours,” he said when they teased Sam and Steve for going to sleep before eleven.”) He pushes back against Steve.

“We’ve got the generator, flashlights, candles, blankets. Our phones are charged, plenty of food and water. We’ve got everything.”

Steve kisses his shoulder. The tip of his nose is cold. “I’ve got you,” he says, like Sam is enough.

Sam smiles. “Yeah,” he says, “You got me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me about Sam/Steve on Tumblr @meegansfuckingjacket. Literally just send me a teary smiley face because that's how I feel when I think about them.
> 
> EDIT*** I can't believe I used the wrong "they're" and no one told me. It's fixed now, but the shame, oh the shame of this English major.


End file.
